If it is your Christmas wish to see a film where the special effects consists of cheesy Xmas decorations doing screen wipes, two martial artists not doing martial arts and a guy who randomly just bellows, "HO HO HO!" at the top of his lungs, this is the movie for you! I honestly do not think there are too many people who wanted or asked for this movie, but there ya go. A very drab one location film where not a lot happens and where only the minimal Christmas decor is used, this is Santa's Summer House!
The story, a van full of people gets lost and ends up at a mansion by the ocean. I honestly thought they were somewhere a bit exotic, but they are just in Southern California. The van driver got lost due to a mysterious fog and a family comes out of the van confused by the strange mansion. Only, they are actually like three groups of people who apparently talked not at all in the van because they only start introducing themselves after they are welcomed by Cynthia Rothrock to the strange summer house. These guests are lucky, when people are usually invited to stay at a stranger's house in a movie it tends to go very badly. Not that this is a super fun time as we watch them play croquet, be all upset and be generally awful people. I was so Cynthia would kick some butt to liven things up and make these drones act with a bit more emotion!
The casting is just bad as Cynthia is the only one doing a goodish job, but she does nothing cool. What makes this worse is we also have Daniel Bernhardt, the Van Dame lookalike from Future Wars also in the film and he has no acting ability and he too does nothing of the martial arts variety. Why have either of these two in your Xmas movie if you are not going to utilize what they are known for? The parents in the film both act as if they are on some really powerful sedatives, their boy an over anxious dweeb. We have a really mean blond who bosses her sister around and the sister lets her and Santa just lets out Ho Ho Hos at times that are disturbingly awkward. These insufferable people will have to carry a film with little else to it other than interactions between the characters...yikes!
So, it is bad, you get no kickboxing or anything. You get a lot of awkward conversations and you get a lot of looking at the clock wondering when the film will be over or if there will be time for another croquet match. Santa is busy trying to get gifts for these people and at one point we learn he did not give a gift to one of the people that would have made the guy less of a prick because the toy that he wanted as a child did not exist. Um, I thought Santa made toys...so couldn't he make anything? Proves my theory that Santa is all corporate now, doesn't even employ elves, but just takes goods from the lowest bidder!
The story, a van full of people gets lost and ends up at a mansion by the ocean. I honestly thought they were somewhere a bit exotic, but they are just in Southern California. The van driver got lost due to a mysterious fog and a family comes out of the van confused by the strange mansion. Only, they are actually like three groups of people who apparently talked not at all in the van because they only start introducing themselves after they are welcomed by Cynthia Rothrock to the strange summer house. These guests are lucky, when people are usually invited to stay at a stranger's house in a movie it tends to go very badly. Not that this is a super fun time as we watch them play croquet, be all upset and be generally awful people. I was so Cynthia would kick some butt to liven things up and make these drones act with a bit more emotion!
The casting is just bad as Cynthia is the only one doing a goodish job, but she does nothing cool. What makes this worse is we also have Daniel Bernhardt, the Van Dame lookalike from Future Wars also in the film and he has no acting ability and he too does nothing of the martial arts variety. Why have either of these two in your Xmas movie if you are not going to utilize what they are known for? The parents in the film both act as if they are on some really powerful sedatives, their boy an over anxious dweeb. We have a really mean blond who bosses her sister around and the sister lets her and Santa just lets out Ho Ho Hos at times that are disturbingly awkward. These insufferable people will have to carry a film with little else to it other than interactions between the characters...yikes!
So, it is bad, you get no kickboxing or anything. You get a lot of awkward conversations and you get a lot of looking at the clock wondering when the film will be over or if there will be time for another croquet match. Santa is busy trying to get gifts for these people and at one point we learn he did not give a gift to one of the people that would have made the guy less of a prick because the toy that he wanted as a child did not exist. Um, I thought Santa made toys...so couldn't he make anything? Proves my theory that Santa is all corporate now, doesn't even employ elves, but just takes goods from the lowest bidder!